FLINT, MI -- A Flint-area attorney campaigning to become a Flint district judge has been ordered to pay back more than $16,000 after a judge ruled he improperly accepted a contingency payment for his work.

The order was filed against Glenn Cotton by Genesee Probate Judge Jennie Barkey on Nov. 1 after Barkey ruled that the $16,500 contingency he accepted to represent his client Annie Lee was inappropriate.

Cotton could not be immediately reached for comment.

Lee’s case revolves around a life insurance settlement she received after her husband, Curtis Lee, died in October 2010.

A 2006 will signed by Curtis Lee stipulated that his estate be turned over to his wife at the time of his death. But his sister, Shawlene Perry, claims that Curtis Lee named Perry as the beneficiary of his $50,000 life insurance policy shortly before his death, court records show.

Initially, Barkey ordered that the life insurance money be turned over to a trust account maintained by Cotton and that disbursements be made to Annie Lee after Cotton submitted a motion to the court stating that Perry had forged both of the Lees’ signatures in the past and that she had inappropriately withdrawn tens-of-thousands of dollars from Curtis Lee’s accounts.

That order was eventually lifted after Perry’s Bloomfield Hills-based attorney, Lawrence Acker, argued that Curtis Lee, who was in the process of divorcing his wife at the time of his death, personally visited his insurance agent to make Perry the beneficiary before he died and that Perry never forged his name, records show.

After a two-day evidentiary hearing in June 2011, Barkey reversed course and ordered that the $50,000 be paid to Perry by Annie Lee and her husband’s estate.

In March, Barkey held Annie Lee and Cotton in civil contempt of court for failing to turn over the $50,000 to Perry.

According to Josh Ard, a private practice attorney who serves as a member of the State Bar of Michigan Representative Assembly and the State Bar of Michigan Professional Ethics Committee, there is no automatic ban that keeps an attorney from taking a contingency in probate cases but said there is a court rule that gives the judge authority to determine what is a reasonable fee for an attorney.

“Most probate judges would not consider it to be reasonable to charge a contingent fee if the job is to distribute property according to the terms of the will,” Ard said.

The only automatic bans are on contingent fees in criminal and family law matters, Ard said.

“Contingency fees are reasonable only when there is a great risk that nothing will be gained,” Ard said. “That’s true for personal injury cases, but is unlikely to be true in simply giving out property based on what the will says.”

Cotton was required by law to have a written agreement for the fee, but Cotton was unable to produce the written agreement during Thursday’s hearing.

A bench warrant was previously issued against Cotton by Barkey after he failed to turn over documents detailing what happened to the life insurance settlement.

The warrant was never placed on the state's Law Enforcement Information Network and was quickly recalled.

Cotton is seeking election in November for one of two Flint district judge seats. He is challenging incumbent judges William Crawford and Herman Marable, as well as attoney Jill Creech Bauer